


Free Timmy

by orphan_account



Series: Something Fishy [1]
Category: DCU, Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Mermaids, Alternate Universe - Merpeople, F/M, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-27
Updated: 2013-07-27
Packaged: 2017-12-21 12:45:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,648
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/900486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s all over the news when Roy wakes up one seemingly ordinary Tuesday morning - overnight, a fishing boat off the coast of North Carolina made an unexpected and unbelievable catch.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Free Timmy

**Author's Note:**

  * For [happyrobins](https://archiveofourown.org/users/happyrobins/gifts).



> Anyway, happy birthday, [Maggie](http://drakefeathers.tumblr.com/)! Sorry for teasing you about this for so long :)

 

It’s all over the news when Roy wakes up one seemingly ordinary Tuesday morning. Overnight, a fishing boat off the coast of North Carolina made an unexpected and unbelievable catch – a merman. Authorities are keeping quiet about the situation and not leaking anything to the public, but it’s clear that with a revolutionary discovery like this, they’re not about to return the thing back to the sea.

Two weeks later, the first official pictures are released to the general public. Roy’s stomach lurches with unease when he sees them – the boy, who can’t be older than fifteen at the most, looks scared and uneasy as he floats in some sort of containment tank. His hair is dark against the pale background of the tank, and his tail is long and vibrantly green. The merboy’s skin is pale, though whether it’s from years of underwater life or from being stuck in a tank for two weeks is unclear.

Roy pushes the newspaper aside, trying to focus on his cereal. Ollie glances at it from over the tip of the business section of the paper and frowns.

“I can’t believe they’re sticking him in the aquarium,” he says, moustache twitching in disapproval, “Further study my  _ass_. They just want to make him their new  _cash cow_.” He gathers up all the sections of the paper scattered across the kitchen table, then stands to place them on the counter for Dinah to read when she gets back from her morning jog.

Roy is left at the table by himself, chewing on cereal that suddenly tastes like soggy cardboard.

-X-

Tim thinks he’s going insane. He’s been stuck in this damned tank for at least a month now – the only time he’s let out is when they stick him in another tank so they can clean his main one. It’s pathetic and maddening and humiliating. His entire life, he’s had the vast expanse of the sea for him to swim in almost completely unbridled. Now, however, he’s stuck in this tank that’s no more than 36 feet deep and 72 feet across (he’s swum the entirety of it enough times to know its precise measurements). It’s tiny and claustrophobic and he just wants to go back to his family.

He shudders at the memory of his capture…Swimming out alone after getting into a raging argument with Jason (“ _Bruce doesn’t even love you, I don’t know why he bothers to keep you around!_ ”) and being too angry to pay proper attention to his surroundings, he’d accidentally swum into shallow waters and then right into a net. The delicate fins on his tail, the ones little Damian pulled on with his fat toddler hands and made fun of so often, got caught and he’d been unable to get them out before the net had been pulled up. Tim remembers the surprised shouting (the words he only partly understood) of the grisly fishermen, and how they hadn’t put him back but had instead left him dangling above the boat in the net. Though he  _can_  breathe air, his gills had thirsted for water so badly he was almost unconscious and his scales had begun to dry out by the time they stuck him in a containment tank.

After that, it had been constant poking and prodding by people in odd white coats for days on end. He’d lost track of day and night, drawing in on himself and not letting the scientists discover anything valuable about him other than his physiology. He’s pretty sure that even now, they don’t know he’s actually intelligent (he shudders to think of what they would do if they did).

Letting out a stream of bubbles in a deep sigh, Tim floats down to the small rock shelter at the bottom of his tank. It barely passes as shelter, but it’s the most privacy he gets in this place. Munching on some wilted seaweed he’d saved from his sickening meal earlier, Tim gags and wishes he were home in Bruce’s undersea palace with Alfred’s cooking.

-X-

Two months after the merboy is captured, an exhibit in the National Aquarium in Baltimore, Maryland opens with him as the main feature. The story is on the front page of every newspaper and magazine, with large, colorful pictures displaying candids of the merboy – who they’ve dubbed “Tirta,” as apparently the boy is not intelligent enough to speak – in his new environment. Roy feels sick to his stomach, yet he still accompanies Ollie to the special screening to which they got tickets.

The screening is full of tons of other rich floozies. In the corner, conversing with the head scientist and lead caretaker, Roy can see Lex Luthor, who all the newspapers say is responsible for the payments that have gone into making Tirta’s tank. He knows Lex Luthor well; if that man funded the entire tank and the habitat inside of it, then he has an ulterior motive. The port for his mechanical prosthetic arm twinges with discomfort.

He shoves the pain aside and heads over to the food bar.

“It just sickens me,” he hears a woman say from nearby. Roy doesn’t turn, but subtly moves closer so he can listen in to the conversation. “I mean, mythology told us that mermaids are half human, half fish. That boy could have intelligence, yet here we are keeping him in a tank!” She huffs in annoyance, and Roy takes the opportunity to look around and see just who she is.

He blinks; her press badge reads Lois Lane. She’s a famous reporter, and one of the few that Ollie holds as credible. Dinah, who has also accompanied Ollie, stands across from her and is nodding in agreement.

“I’m no animal expert, but I  _am_  a psychologist,” Dinah explains, “and there is  _no way_  I can see this containment ending well for that boy, half fish or not.” She takes a cheese cube off the tray of a passing waiter, and then continues. “Just look at all the horror stories about orcas in captivity. If something isn’t done soon, Tirta will either kill one of the scientists or keepers, or himself.” Lois angrily scribbles something on her notepad, nodding in agreement.

“It’s ridiculous,” she says angrily as she writes, “If I know Lex Luthor – and oh,  _believe me_ , I do – he’s up to something sinister in funding this project. The problem is,” she sighs, “I just can’t figure out what he can achieve by doing this.”

Just then, Dinah catches sight of Roy over Lois’ shoulder. “Oh, Roy! Honey, come here, I want you to meet someone.” Roy huffs, eavesdropping over, but trudges over to stand by Dinah. “This is my son, Roy. Roy, this is Miss Lois Lane. You know who she is, right?”

Roy nods, but speaks to Lois instead. “Lex Luthor is a bastard,” he bites out, left hand unconsciously rubbing his artificial arm. Dinah sighs, but doesn’t argue. Lois, however, looks delighted to find someone who shares her opinion.

“Really?” She asks, pen out and poised to write. “Do you mind if I ask you what your thoughts are on Tirta’s situation?”

Roy crosses his arms and tries to ignore how Lois’ eyes flash to his metal hand. A dedicated reporter, however, she keeps her focus on the more important story.

“Yeah, I think it’s bullshit,” he says, scowling. “I mean, I saw those pictures they first released, back when he was just in the initial containment tank, and he looked really scared and not  _healthy_.” Lois nods, keeping her eyes firmly on him while she somehow manages to continue writing. “I also think it’s horrible how they got him there in the first place. They kept him  _dangling_  out of the water above the boat! I mean,  _I_  know jack shit about mermaids, but I figure they need  _water_ , right? Like  _hell_  was that healthy for him.”

“Yes, yes…” Lois says, and then snaps her head back up when she’s finished writing. “Thank you…Roy, was it? Your input is definitely appreciated.” Dinah steps up alongside him, worried frown on her face.

“Miss Lane –“

“Call me Lois.”

“Lois, I don’t want to be rude, but if you publish Roy’s statement, could you please keep it anonymous?” Roy can feel her eyes on his arm, and he turns away. “There are…certain people we don’t want to anger.” Lois nods, understanding, and Dinah lets out a miniscule sigh of relief.

Roy leaves the conversation behind him, instead turning his focus to the tank. No one’s paying it any attention anymore, since the merboy is shy and refuses to come out from his rock shelter.

“I’m sorry,” Roy says quietly as he stands before tank. Tirta can’t hear him, but he says it all the same. “This must suck. I wish I could get you out of here.” He sighs. All that’s visible of the merboy is a foot or two of the delicate fin at the end of his tail. Roy leans forward, allowing his head to bang up against the plexiglas. Standing in front of the tank is like standing in a bubble – the noise from the conversations going on around him fades away until it’s nothing more than a dull murmur at the back of his awareness.

Suddenly, his eyes detect movement, and he looks up. A delicate hand, pale and webbed, is carefully placed just opposite of Roy’s own flesh one. His eyes trace up the arm that is connected to the hand, over the intricate tattoo on the slim bicep, then up to the confused face of Tirta inches away from his on the other side of the glass. Roy is speechless, his eyes wide as he tries to comprehend what’s happening. The merboy looks at him with a sad look in eyes ( _impossibly_  blue eyes), as if he’s asking  _Roy_  why he’s stuck in this situation.

Before Roy can properly respond, Luthor’s voice carries over the murmur of conversation.

“Why, look! Tirta decided to make an appearance after all!” Before Roy can even blink, he’s suddenly swarmed by people who are prodding him and pushing him aside. He just barely escapes the mob, leaving him gasping for breath and in a cold sweat off in the corner of the room. He’s still not good with crowds and enclosed spaces.

Roy catches a glimpse of Tirta’s shimmering green tail as the merboy darts back to his cave. The crowd makes sounds of disappointment and begins to disperse. He takes one last glance at the tank, then turns and grabs Dinah.

He needs to leave, now.

-X-

The problem with his dumb tank, Tim thinks, is that literally the only place he can hide is in his rock cave. In order to eat (and how humiliating  _that_ is), he has to come out. In order for the tank to be cleaned (an unfortunate necessity), he has to come out. His muscles quickly grow cramped and sore from curling in a tight ball to stay in his cave, so he has to routinely emerge and do a few laps around the tank to stretch.

He thinks it wouldn’t be nearly so bad if he weren’t on display like some mindless creature in the palace gardens. He feels a sudden twinge of sympathy for them, and vows that when (not if, when) he gets out of here, he’ll check to make sure they’re being cared for properly. Maybe he’ll even release them if Bruce allows it.

Sometimes, when he’s alone at night, Tim thinks about the boy he saw the first night he’d been out for display. His hair had been red, and shorter than Tim had ever seen on anybody (besides old men who have no hair anyway). The expression on his face had been sad, and for a moment, Tim had put his own problems aside and wondered about the boy’s. Unlike all the others in the room, the boy’s focus hadn’t been on  _him_ , even though he was right up against the edge of the tank. Of course, all that was forgotten as soon as someone alerted the crowd to the fact that he’d come out of his cave.

Tim pushes the memories aside, and looks down at his tail sadly. Its once-brilliant and shimmering scales are starting to dull. He can feel himself losing weight – the diet is poor and ill suited to his nutritional needs, but even if he does opt to try speaking to his “keepers,” he still doesn’t speak their language and probably won’t be able to communicate his correct dietary needs anyway. The tank’s water makes his gills itch, and it never seems to be a suitable temperature.

He knows the scientists and keepers are beginning to worry, but the only thing they can do to restore his health is release him back to his proper environment, and he can’t see that happening anytime soon.

-X-

Hundreds of miles away and deep under the sea, the ruler of the small oceanic country of Gotham frowns as he gazes upon his immaculately prepared meal. As has been the norm since Tim’s disappearance, he doesn’t feel very hungry. Sighing, he looks over his children.

“I think we’ve waited long enough,” he says, “I’m going to send a messenger to Diana and Donna. We’re extending the search for Tim out to on land.”

Dick, his eldest, seems stricken. “Land…?” he asks faintly, looking nauseous at the thought. “You think…Tim has been captured?” Even Jason, who was the initial cause for Tim’s disappearance, looks horrified at the notion.

“It’s likely, yes.” Bruce says. “Tim goes off on his own sometimes, that’s true, but never for this long. Combine that with the exponential increase of fishing boats and nets that have been out lately…” he trails off, thinking of the various merpeople that have gotten caught and seriously injured in lost and discarded fishing nets. His stomach churns.

“I will alert Master West tomorrow morning, sir,” Alfred says as he clears away Bruce’s untouched meal. Wally West is the fastest merman in the whole ocean, and maybe beyond. He’s been here in the city the past few days looking for Tim with Dick. Bruce can’t express how much he appreciates it.

The remainder of the meal is silent as the family contemplates the horrors Tim might be facing.

-X-

“Any luck in finding another catch?”

“No, Mr. Luthor, sir. Not yet.”

“Hmph. Well, you’d better hope you find one soon…”

“Yessir. We’ll do our best.”

-X-

Roy looks up at the aquarium with an unreadable expression on his face. It’s his first time visiting since the private screening, almost two weeks ago. Tirta’s exhibit is quickly losing popularity due to his extreme shyness and his noticeably sharp decline in health. It doesn’t help that visitors have to pay to see the exhibit. People come out and complain about how they wasted money in paying to see nothing, or paying to see something that’ll be dead in a few weeks anyway.

Roy digs his hands deeper into his jacket pockets, and enters the building. He ignores the various tropical fish and sharks, instead heading right to Tirta. He pays the fee, and then enters the dark room. There’s a staircase that goes to an upper part of the exhibit so viewers can look down into the tank, but most people prefer to try catching a glimpse through the plexiglas window that gives an underwater view of the exhibit.

At the moment, there are only two other people in the room with him – a couple that has apparently given up on seeing Tirta, and has instead opted to utilize the darkness of the room as privacy for an intense make-out session.

Tirta is, of course, hiding. Roy’s not entirely sure what else he was expecting, but he still feels disappointed. He’d wanted to see him again, to try communicating with him to see if the merboy was as dumb as all the scientists claimed. “No smarter than the average dolphin,” the exhibit signs claim. Roy knows better. Dolphins are particularly smart animals, but he’d seen definite intelligence in those sad, blue eyes, and his stomach lurches at the thought of an intelligent being stuck in a tank like this one.

Roy’s not sure how long he stands there, waiting. Long enough for the couple to get bored and leave (hopefully to find a more private room), though. Finally, after what feels like an eternity, Tirta slowly exits his rock shelter in a manner that closely resembles an eel checking to see if the coast is clear. He stretches, does a few loops, and then begins a lap around the round edge of the tank.

No sooner has Tirta started then he stops; he catches sight of Roy, and cautiously approaches the glass. Roy gulps. He doesn’t like thinking about what it means if Tirta can remember and recognize him even if he’s only seen him once before. The merboy comes right up to the glass, delicate webbed hand pressing up against the barrier between them. His pink lips open, revealing slightly sharper than normal teeth, but nothing except bubbles come out. Roy lets his gaze wander past Tirta’s face, and feels his stomach drop to his toes.

The merboy has lost a noticeable amount of weight since Roy saw him just two weeks ago. His eyes are glazed and distant, and his tail is much duller than he remembers. Roy places his left hand up on the glass, bowing his head in sorrow. Tirta cannot live in this environment, but how can  _he_  get him out of there?

When he looks up again, he finds Tirta examining his hand, and comparing it to his own. The boy – well, teen, actually, now that Roy sees him up close; he looks to be just about his own age – is enthralled with Roy’s web-less hand. Despite himself, Roy cracks a grin. Tirta catches sight of it, and offers his own tentative grin in return. It looks pained, but it still brightens his face. Tirta’s gaze drops, and he points at Roy’s right hand dangling by his side.

Roy frowns, but lifts his arm up and pulls back the sleeve for Tirta to see. The delicate machinery amazes him, but Roy’s not surprised. Machines and water don’t mix, after all; Tirta’s probably never seen something like this before in his life. Suddenly, Tirta pulls back. He looks up, beckoning Roy to come to the upper part of the exhibit.

Roy complies, though he’s unsure of what’s happening. When he steps up to lean on the bar that encircles the tank, Tirta pops his head above water and grins. He opens his mouth and says, in halting, accented English that sounds like water bubbling over rocks in a river, “Heh-low.” Hello.

Roy blinks, mouth gaping. Not that he could deny Tirta’s intelligence before, but he definitely can’t now.

“You…you can  _speak?_ ” he asks, aghast, “And they have you in a tank like  _this?_ ”

Tirta looks confused. His brow wrinkles and he scrunches up his nose. “N-name…Timothy.”

Roy’s eyebrows rise so far up his forehead that he’s sure they’d disappear into his hair if he had any.

“Timothy? Like, Tim? Timmy?” Tirta – er, well, Timothy, apparently, what an oddly normal name for a decidedly abnormal being – nods and grins widely. It’s much happier than the one he’d offered underwater a few minutes prior.

“Tim!” he beams, then asks, “Name?” and points at Roy.

“My name is Roy,” he answers, trying to make the words as clear as possible.

“Roy,” Tim repeats, looking like he’s testing out how the word feels on his tongue. He smiles again, this time more shy. Roy notices he has a dimple in his left cheek.

“Hello, Roy,” Tim says, still smiling. Then, his lips pucker into a frown. “Why…” he frowns further when he cannot seem to find the word he wants. Instead, he gestures at Roy, then mimes a sad face.

“Why am I sad?” Roy asks, and Tim nods. “I’m sad because Lex Luthor is an  _asshole_ , and he has you locked up in here when you’re clearly intelligent. This is so inhumane, oh my  _god_ , I can’t believe no one’s  _done_ anything about this -” He stops short, realizing that he lost Tim at some point. The teen is still smiling, but he looks lost and vaguely confused. “Oh. Uh, sorry. I tend to ramble,” Roy says, fighting a blush as he scratches the back of his neck. Tim snickers, and oh, there’s that dimple again.

Suddenly, a voice comes on over the speakers.

“Attention all visitors – the aquarium will be closing for the night in ten minutes. Please exit all exhibits at this time and make your way towards the doors. Thank you for coming today, and we hope you visit again soon!”

Tim looks confused, turning his gaze to Roy for clarification.

“I,” Roy says, pointing at himself, “need to go now,” he mimes walking away. Tim looks crestfallen, and he feels guilty. “I’ll be back tomorrow, okay?”

The merboy probably has no clue what he’s saying, but at least he looks slightly less sad when Roy turns and exits the exhibit.

-X-

Wally comes to an abrupt stop, vibrant red tail sparkling in the bright seas of the Mediterranean. Two harsh-looking female guards decked out in full armor glare at him from behind their Grecian style masks.

“I bring an urgent message to Queen Diana from Gotham’s ruler Bruce Wayne,” he pants, gills flaring as he catches his breath. The guards look at each other, then nod. The one with the gold tail turns and leans into the entrance of the cave between the sea and the concealed alcove in which the Amazonian mermaids reside. She calls something out in Greek to another guard further in the tunnel, then turns to face Wally again.

“Queen Diana will speak with you shortly.” Wally nods, bowing his head graciously. He knows that he’s very lucky to be able to speak with Diana so quickly, so he’s not about to push his luck and demand that she hurry.

Within a few minutes, Diana swims through the rocky archway.

“Wally!” she says with a wide smile, “To what do I owe this visit?” The look on his face must clue her in, as the smile quickly drops from her face. “What happened?” she asks.

“It’s Tim,” Wally responds. “He disappeared after an argument with Jason almost three months ago, and we haven’t found him anywhere. Not even his body. Bruce fears for the worst and thinks he might’ve been captured by humans and taken on land. He asked that I request your assistance in an on land search on his behalf.”

Diana looks grim. “Captured by humans, you say?” Wally nods. “I see.” She turns to the guard that had spoken earlier. “Aikaterine, fetch my sister. She and I will be leaving for America today!”

-X-

Roy keeps his promise and returns the next day. This time, however, there’s a small group staging a protest on the aquarium’s front steps. He’s surprised to find Artemis, his foster sister (and biological sister of Ron’s klepto ex-con girlfriend, who is  _not_  their foster sister, _ick_ ). She’s got some friends with her he doesn’t recognize.

“Roy! Roy, c’mere!” She calls him over. Roy sighs, but trudges over. It’s too late to pretend like he didn’t see her now. “We’re protesting Tirta’s capture and  _exhibit_ ,” she spits out, “Feel like joining us?”

“I’m Barbara,” a gorgeous redhead says as she rolls her wheelchair up. “I’m a friend of Artemis’, we went to high school together. Honestly,” she says with a smile, “we’re just extremely concerned about Tirta’s health. It’s been in a rapid decline ever since he was first captured, and any sane scientist would have released him by now.”

“Everyone knows Lex Luthor’s scientists aren’t sane, though,” a blonde girl Roy vaguely recognizes as Bette Kane huffs.

“We just want more people to be aware of how bad Tirta’s condition is,” a hulking wall of muscle that goes by Mal Duncan says with a kind smile.

“I dunno. Protesting isn’t really my thing…” he says, trying to move the conversation along so he can get inside. Artemis frowns.

“That’s bullshit,” she says frankly, “I’ve seen you do loads of protests.” Then, it looks like something dawns on her. “Wait,” she says, sounding horrified and angry, “Don’t tell me you were going to go in there and see that exhibit.” When he doesn’t answer immediately, she punches him in the arm. His real one. “Roy Harper! I thought you were against this too! How dare you support this?!”

“It’s not like that,” he mutters, face burning as he winces and rubs his arm. Artemis sure packs a punch.

“Then what is it like, Harper?” Oh, last names. He’s in trouble now.

“I…” He can’t get the words out to explain. Somehow, he feels like he’ll be betraying Tim’s trust. “I’ll talk to you later,” he mutters darkly, then stalks away before Artemis can say anything else.

Inside, the person in the ticket booth raises her eyes at seeing Roy for the same exhibit two days in a row. “You really wanna see him, huh?” she asks as she takes his cash and stamps his hand.

“Something like that,” Roy says, shoving his hand back in his pocket.

This time, he’s the only one lurking inside the darkened room of the exhibit. Roy raps his knuckles gently on the plexiglas, and after a few seconds Tim peers out cautiously from behind the rocks. When he catches sight of Roy, his face breaks into a smile and he immediately swims out and up to join Roy in the upper part of the exhibit.

“Hello, Roy!” he says in his accented English. “Hello!”

“’Lo, there, Tim,” Roy smirks.

Tim babbles something in a strange, foreign language, blushing.

“I have no idea what you just said,” Roy laughs. Tim’s face scrunches up in concentration, like he’s really thinking about his words.

“Show…English?” He looks frustrated with his limited vocabulary, but Roy’s honestly surprised he even knows the few words that he does.

“Sure,” he says, shrugging. It’s not like he has anything better to do. “What do you want to know?”

Tim seems to get the idea. He starts out by pointing to his tail.

“Tail,” Roy responds. For the first time, Roy actually  _looks_  at Tim’s tail. It’s nothing like  _The Little Mermaid_ tails or the tails on the covers of shitty forbidden romance novels. It’s not thin and delicate and impossible flexible, nor does it look like someone slapped some scales on over a pair of legs. No, it’s pure  _fish_. It’s at least six feet long, ending with long, delicate fins of a lighter tint than the tail’s normal green. It’s still quite a sight to see, even if it’s obvious that Tim’s poor health doesn’t have it in the best of conditions.

Next, Tim points to his hands. “Hand.” Roy says, then, “Uh…webs?” when Tim moves on to the delicate, almost transparent webbing between his fingers.

Roy’s there until closing time, occasionally ducking behind his cellphone (which he does use to snap a selfie with Tim smiling in the background when the coast is clear) when other visitors stop to gawk for a few minutes. This time when he leaves, he thinks Tim understands what he’s saying. He’s smart like that.

When he exits the exhibit that evening, the girl in the ticket booth gives him an odd look.

-X-

Tim lurks in the corner of his tank. It’s not quite out of sight, but it’s more comfortable than curling up in a cave too small for him and his tail. His thoughts have, again, turned to the red haired boy – Roy – who visits him. Tim’s not sure why he feels so drawn to him. Maybe it’s the scowl Roy wears that’s he’s sure is mostly for show, or maybe it’s his metal arm (they have nothing like it under the sea), or maybe it’s that Roy seems to be almost as disgusted about his captivity as he himself is. He appreciates his efforts, though, with the words and company. It’s refreshing to finally be truly  _looked at_  (and doesn’t that sound weird, what with him being on constant display) and seen for an intelligent being.

Somehow, Roy’s different. Everyone else just gawks and points; Roy  _sees_. Tim thinks of his fuzzy head, the twitch of his lips when Tim got a word right, and the almost-invisible freckles splattered across his nose.

He thinks he doesn’t mind that.

-X-

Diana is cautious, looking both ways and making sure no one is sitting on the pier above, as she carefully shifts and then steps out of the water. Donna follows shortly after, and the sisters hurriedly change into the spelled-to-be-waterproof human clothes and wring the nasty river water out of their hair. Shifting at will without the aid of potions or spells is something only the Amazons can do, but even then most prefer to remain underwater rather than taking their chances on land.

Diana frowns, adjusting her clothes as she slips on a pair of shoes. Human clothing is so restricting – tight and scratchy and confining. The pants are an absolute nightmare (as are the shoes), but they disguise just how pale her legs are in comparison to the rest of her tanned body.

She looks to Donna, who nods. There’s an Internet café in the vicinity that they’ve had to use before. They also have some human currency stashed not much further, which they know will be useful.

It’s not hard to find Tim at all - something that deeply unsettles both women. They sit down at the café and do a quick Google search for mermaids – a news article pops up right away, complete with exclusive photographs of the amazing merboy caught off the coast of North Carolina a few months prior.

“Great Hera…” Diana breathes, eyes wide in horror as she scrolls through the pictures. Tim looks horrible – sad, wilting, and beyond terrified. His tail is losing its sheen, and though he had always been thin before he had disappeared, she can count his ribs now.

Abruptly, she backs out of the webpage, instead looking up directions on how to reach the aquarium where Tim’s being contained from their present location. It’s quite a hike, but nothing’s too far if it means saving one of Bruce’s children.

-X-

Roy finds himself looking forward to his daily trips to the aquarium. Despite his limited vocabulary, Tim makes for great company, better than Roy’s had since before he was kidnapped. Roy doesn’t remember much from when he was kidnapped (the doctors told him that he’d been drugged most of the time), but he does remember how everyone at school stared at his stump of an arm (and then at his new mechanical one) and how all his friends seemed to have moved on in his (forced) absence.

It’s nice to finally have someone that doesn’t know his “tragic backstory,” for someone to genuinely appreciate his company rather than being forced into it by pity. Roy feels like he can be more open around Tim, at least. It doesn’t hurt that Tim can make him laugh like few others have been able to in the past few months.

Making Tim laugh is very rewarding, too. Roy’s presence seems to brighten his day, but the teen still isn’t the most open of people, preferring small grins or puffs of air to actual _laughter_. Roy views it as a proud accomplishment when he actually makes Tim laugh out loud, makes that silly little dimple appear in his cheek. 

Moreover, Roy’s come to discover with Tim’s gradual increase in vocabulary that the merboy is also  _stunningly_  sarcastic. Roy can relate; his already-bountiful sarcasm increased in leaps and bounds after his kidnapping as a sort of defense mechanism. He understands what Tim’s going through and what he’s feeling.

Every day, he finds himself coming home from the aquarium in a good mood. He feels happy and light on his feet…

…Until he remembers Tim’s situation.

-X-

Artemis is there one day when Roy returns to the museum, though she’s not where he expects her to be. He comes through a side entrance instead, though the girl at the ticket booth is the same one as the one three days ago (she arches her eyebrow and mutters something about dedication), and is shocked to find Artemis waiting for him on the other side of the door.

“Back again, huh,” she says. Roy flounders, looking for an excuse, and says the first (and probably not the smartest) thing that comes to mind.

“You actually paid the fee to get in here?” Artemis rolls her eyes in a manner that just screams,  _“You’re an idiot!”_

“No,” she huffs, “I snuck in through the employee entrance. Like hell am I giving them any of my money!” She steps closer, pointing a finger a Roy. “I came here to find out why you spend so much time in here. Seriously, you’re going to spend your entire summer in this aquarium, supporting Lex Luthor and his insane desire to have a  _pet mermaid?!_ ” She stomps her foot angrily. “This is killing him, Roy! If they keep for another two or three months, he’ll be  _dead!_  I don’t know why they won’t just release him, but you consistently coming and paying the fee is only showing Luthor that he doesn’t have to shut down the exhibit because there’s still commercial interest in his pet!”

“You think I  _like_  him being in here?” Roy steps closer to her, not about to back down from the argument. “You think I  _like_  seeing his ribs stick out?  _Like_  seeing how dull his scales are getting? _Like_  seeing how he barely has enough room?” He jabs a finger in her face. “I  _hate_  it Artemis!  _Hate it!_  The least I can do is –“

His angry tirade is cut short by a banging on the glass. Both he and Artemis turn to find a distraught-looking Tim floating against the barrier.

“Roy!” He shouts, but it’s just barely audible. Roy winces, waving half-heartedly as Artemis gapes beside him.

“He can speak?” Artemis asks, sounding horrified. “Wait. He knows your name! That’s what you’ve been doing all week!”

Guilty as charged, but Roy’s not about to concede to her after the fuss she made. “Yeah, what about it?” She flounders for a second.

“Well, y’know…you could’ve just told me. I wouldn’t have gotten angry at if you if you’d just said that you were making a  _friend_. Well,” she pauses, “I’m still angry that you paid to make a friend.” Roy huffs, but doesn’t argue the point any further.

“C’mon,” he says, dragging the young woman up the stairs to the upper part of the exhibit. “Come say hi to him.”

Tim is waiting for them on the surface, looking worried. “Fighting!” is the first thing he says, pointing at the two of them. Roy grins, abashed.

“Yeah, sorry about that. Just a disagreement, nothing to worry about.” He waves the concern away, but Tim furrows his brow.

“You okay?”

Roy nods. “Jeeze, I told you I was fine! You’re such a worrywart.” He pulls Artemis forward so that she’s standing beside him at the railing. “Tim, this is Artemis. She’s basically my sister. Artemis, this is Timothy, Tim for short.” Aside, he mutters to Artemis, “I’ve been trying to teach him English.”

“Hello, Tim,” she says, waving awkwardly.

“Nice…meeting, Artemis,” he responds. He makes a face at the words, knowing that he messed up but not knowing how. Artemis smirks.

“Nice to meet you,” she corrects. Tim repeats it, and she smiles. “Cute,” she says to Roy. “You’ve been doing nothing but teaching him English all week?” Roy glances at Tim, shrugging.

“More or less.” Tim’s a quick learner; he’s barely forgotten anything Roy taught him.

“Impressive,” Artemis says. Pauses. Looks like she wants to say something, but can’t quite get it out.

“Cat got your tongue?” Roy asks, snorting.

“I could…help.” She says, scowling at him. Roy raises his eyebrows, beckoning her to continue. “I’m bilingual, remember? I know English from a non-English speaker’s perspective. I could help teach him.”

Roy’s eyebrows go higher. “Really? You’d do that?” She elbows him.

“Duh! If he can communicate properly with him, maybe they’ll let him go!”

Neither of them can see that as actually happening (not with Lex Luthor behind the exhibit), but Roy accepts the offer nonetheless.

-X-

Diana and Donna stand before the aquarium, looking up at it with dark eyes. Finally, Diana steps forward, her sister at her side, and they enter the building. Following signs that lead towards Tim’s exhibit, Diana has to resist the urge to punch in the face of the girl selling tickets to enter it. People have to pay to see the boy who is practically her nephew – pay, like he’s some sort of freak sideshow in a disreputable circus.

She seethes with anger, but hands over the money that is required for entrance. The ticket girl seems to sense her anger (or maybe she sees sharper-than-normal teeth in Donna’s snarl), flinching slightly when Diana and Donna walk past.

The two women find that the upper half of the exhibit isn’t as empty as the lower room was. Leaning up against the rail are a teenage boy and a young woman, conversing with Tim. They leap away from the railing and immediately try to look like they weren’t doing anything, but neither Amazon is fooled.

Tim’s eyes go wide when he catches sight of the new visitors. “Diana! Donna!” He swims closer, smile so wide it looks like it could split his face in two.

“Oh, Tim,” Donna says sadly, leaning as far over the railing as she can without falling into the tank. Her reach is still at least three feet away from Tim’s own desperate one.

“Wait a second. You guys know each other?” Diana turns her sharp gaze to the redhead, giving him a look. Rather than backing down, the teen takes a step forward, like he thinks he can intimidate her. “What took you guys so long? Tim’s been wasting away in here, and you –“

“That’s enough.” Diana cuts him off. “My sister and I have traveled a long way to come here and I will  _not_  have you mock our efforts.”

The blonde woman tugs on the boy’s arm, giving him a glare. “I’m sorry about my brother,” she says with extreme civility, “We’ve both just been very worried about Tim, and to see –“

Tim hurriedly cuts in, saying something to the Amazons in his language, which makes Diana turn to look at the two humans in a new light.

“Tim tells me you’ve been keeping him company and teaching him English.” The boy looks like he’s about to say something rude that he’ll regret, but the woman elbows him sharply in the side and nods.

“We figured we couldn’t really help him until we could communicate properly.” The queen nods, finding the statement true.

“That is a wise decision,” she says. She’s seen battles go horribly wrong in the past due to miscommunication and misunderstandings between people who all speak the same language; she shudders to think of what an escape attempt could go like in Tim’s condition if the humans weren’t able to properly understand his needs.

“Are you here to break him out?” Roy butts in, “’Cause seriously, he’s not getting any better and if he doesn’t get put back in the ocean soon, it’s not going to be pretty for  _anybody_.”

Diana appraises the two, looking them over with a careful eye. Behind her, she can feel Donna doing the same, while Tim looks anxiously between the two pairs.

“Yes,” she answers after a long moment. The two seem trustworthy, and Tim would hardly lie about an ally in his situation. The worst they can do is be useless.

“I want to help,” the boy cuts in immediately, looking determined. “I’ll do everything I can to make sure Tim is out of here as soon as possible.”

“Is that so?” Diana queries. The blonde woman nods.

“Me too. And I have some people with some talents that could definitely help.” Her face is determined, and shows no hints of dishonesty. Same with the boy.

“If Tim trusts them –and he says he does – then I trust them,” Donna says.

Diana nods. “Very well,” she says. “Come with me, then. We have much to discuss, and here is not the place to do it.”

She turns to leave, and Tim panics. He calls something desperately, splashing in the water. Diana makes the mistake of looking right at his face, and feels her heart breaking. The _don’t leave me_  is clear in his expression, and he looks about two seconds away from tears.

“ _Tim_ ,” Donna explains in his tongue, “ _We need to discuss escape plans. We’re not leaving you behind; we just can’t do it here where anyone can walk in._ ”

“ _Don’t leave me_ ,” he pleads, “ _Please, not now!_ ” Diana’s not sure if the wetness on his face is from tears or from the tank, but if Tim’s not crying now, he will be soon.

“ _I’m sorry, Tim,_ ” Donna says solemnly, looking like she wants to cry too, “ _We’ll be back, I promise, okay? Please, Tim, you have to understand!_ ” Reluctantly, she pulls her arm back and stands up straight. Tim lets out a wordless cry, diving down and then trying to launch himself as high in the air as possible. The shallow depth of the pool doesn’t allow him to get that much air, and he falls beneath the surface.

Instead of coming up again, Tim retreats to the shelter of his cave, feeling mortified and hopeless.

From above, Diana watches with sad eyes. Then, she turns and heads towards the door, barely sparing the humans a glance as she throws a “Come with me” over her shoulder.

Artemis, Roy, and Donna follow, though Roy spends a long moment glancing at Tim’s hiding place in the rock shelter. He feels horrible, but knows it’s for the best. Right?

-X-

The older of the two mysterious women buys food from a vendor and the four of them sit together on some of the benches out in front of the aquarium. As Roy unwraps his chilidog and takes a bite, he tries to push away the memory of Tim’s frantic face as they’d left him behind. The guilt makes the chilidog tastes like cardboard in his mouth.

He swallows, and then turns to the women. “Okay, explain. Give me a backstory or something – who you are, how Tim got here, whatever. I just need an explanation, pronto.”

The elder woman looks a bit miffed about him, a teenage boy, barking orders at him, but doesn’t argue.

“My name is Queen Diana of Themyscira, and this is my sister, Princess Ambassador Donna Troy.” As Roy and Artemis gape, she continues, “We are Amazonian mermaids, meaning we can shift between human and mermaid at will. Tim’s father, King Bruce Wayne of Gotham, requested our assistance in his search for his son, as his undersea search parties were having no luck.”

Roy’s mouth opens and closes as he struggles to find words.

“T-Tim’s…a prince?” he manages to get out, “Those fishermen captured a prince? Oh god…” he moans, “They kidnapped a  _prince_ and he’s almost  _dead._ ”

Diana’s lips tighten. “I see Tim neglected to inform you of that crucial detail.” Beside her, Donna’s lips twitch into an almost half-grin.

“It figures; that’s just like Tim to do,” she snorts, shaking her head.

“Moving along,” Diana cuts in, “Tim disappeared from the palace after a harsh dispute with his elder brother Jason. Since he has disappeared without notice many times before, his family was not aware something was wrong until it was too late. Bruce’s search parties were not having any success, so he requested that my sister and I begin a search on land just to be safe.” She frowns. “I wish we had been unsuccessful.”

Roy opens his mouth to question the statement, but shuts in when he realizes just what it means. He bows his head, eyes downcast.

Artemis, at his side, leans forward. “How can we get him out?” She asks, resolute.

“That’s what we’d like to figure out,” Donna says. “You said you had some people who could help?”

She nods. “My friend Barbara is pretty much one of the best hackers in the world; she could take care of security cameras easily. My sister also happens to be a kleptomaniac and a somewhat ex-con who could get us into the building after hours with almost no hassle. “

“My brother Ron also has a boat we could use,” Roy pipes up. It’s about goddamn time for that dumb boat to be useful for something other than Ron’s bragging (in his honest opinion).

Diana nods, thoughtful. “I see,” she says, “That’s very good. Will you talk to these people and get their agreement to work with us?”

Artemis nods, though Roy huffs. “I can try, but that damn boat is Ron’s  _baby_. I’ll have to swear on my life that it won’t get a single scratch while we’re out using it.” Seriously, it’s a boat. A very cool boat that Ron’s friend Vic has made some very neat (and possibly illegal) adjustments to, but it’s still just a boat.

“Hm,” Diana intones, “If he gives you any trouble, let me know. I will handle it if I must.” The image of bull-headed Ron Harper going up against this fierce, warrior-like mermaid makes Roy want to laugh out loud. Yeah, like Ron would ever be able to say no to her.

“Oh, believe me,” Roy says with a wry grin, “I will.”

-X-

“Hey, Ron. I have something crazy I wanna discuss with you.”

Roy Harper looks up from where he is entangled in his girlfriend Jade (seriously, it’s hard to tell where he ends and she begins), giving his younger brother a glare.

“And you needed to ask me about it right this minute?” Jade, who has one hand up Ron’s shirt and another below his waistline, gives Roy a withering look that shows just how low his chances of survival are if his answer is anything other than ‘no.’

Roy grins devilishly. Like he’ll ever give up an opportunity to interrupt Roy and Jade (seriously, the two bang all the time – they can afford to cut it short every now and then)!

“Yeah, actually I do. It’s kinda a matter of life or death.” Ron heaves a monumental sigh, but rolls out from under Jade and zips up his jeans. Jade huffs, looking bitter and annoyed. If she had laser vision, Roy would be dead sixteen times over. She gets off the bed, shamelessly adjusting her shirt before shoving Roy with perhaps a little more force than necessary on her way out.

“I’ll leave you boys to your fun,” she says over her shoulder, shooting Roy one last look.

Ron subtly fixes his bed sheets, then sits down and pats the spot beside him for Roy to take. “Fine,” he says, “Talk to me. Is it girl problems? Do you finally have your first crush and feel like you’re gonna die?”

Roy snorts. “Not quite.”

“Boy problems, then?” He rolls his eyes.

“Let me talk before you go making assumptions, god.” Ron punches him in the arm.

“Hey, I’m the one who stopped in the middle of having sex to talk to you. You should watch what you say to me, you twerp.” Roy mock-glares at him, then falls silent as he tries to figure out how to approach the subject.

“You were…sort of right,” he says after a moment. “It’s boy issues. Kind of.” Ron raises a surprised eyebrow, but doesn’t say anything. “Oh my god,” Roy says to the ceiling, “You’re going to think I’m insane.” Ron elbows him.

“Spit it out, twerp,” he says, “I didn’t let Jade walk out of here just so you could decide you’re crazy and waste my time.”

“Fine!” Roy huffs, but looks Ron in the eyes. “If you laugh, though, I will punch you in the face. With my right hand.” Ron raises his hands in defense, but doesn’t say anything else. “Okay. Fine. So. Tirta? The merboy?” Ron nods, and he continues. “Well, long story short…I found out he can talk, he just can’t speak English. And, well, it turns out that he’s kind of a prince.”

Ron stares. Blinks, then purses his lips and ducks his head, shoulders shaking ever so slightly in concealed mirth. Roy scowls, knowing Ron thinks he’s a lunatic, and digs into his pocket for his phone.

“Here,” he says, quickly scrolling through pictures until he finds the selfie he took of him and Tim the first day he’d tried teaching him English, then shoves it in Ron’s hands. “His name is actually Timothy, Tim for short.”

Ron doesn’t say anything for a long moment. Then, “You came to me about this…why? “

Roy drums his fingers on his knee. This is the difficult part. He’s pretty sure Ron is still halfway convinced he’s lost his marbles, so getting him to hand over the keys to his boat is going to be pretty tricky.

“Tim’s a prince,” he reiterates, “And if he doesn’t get back in the ocean, and pronto, he’s gonna die. Me ‘n Artemis and a few others are breaking him out. We just need some…transportation.”

Ron blinks. Processes. Blinks again. “Oh no,” he says, “You are not touching my boat. Not in a million years are you going to pull off a – a  _heist_  with my boat!”

“Please, Ron!” Roy interrupts before he can say anything further, the fact that he actually said  _please_  silencing Ron’s protests immediately, “He is going to die if he’s stuck in that tank for much longer! You can drive it yourself if you want, I don’t care! Just please help us!”

Ron doesn’t say anything for a minute; just stares at his younger brother. Finally, he sighs and looks down at his hands. “Fine,” he grounds out after a moment. “I’ll agree to help, but only after I see ‘Tim’ speak for himself, got it?”

“Got it,” Roy responds firmly.

-X-

Artemis grabs her sister before Jade can leave the house. “I need to talk to you,” she says seriously, because that’s the only way to even briefly catch Jade’s attention.

“Nice to see you too, Sis,” Jade says with her trademark smirk. “To what do I owe the pleasure?” Artemis huffs, tugging the older woman into her room. “This wouldn’t have anything to do with Roy interrupting my fun with Ron, now would it?”

Artemis shrugs as she guides Jade to the chair in front of her desk. Jade opts to sit on her desk instead, twirling a pencil between her fingers. “I dunno. Probably.”

“Hmm,” Jade intones, sounding displeased.

“Look, I’ll cut straight to the point,” Artemis huffs from across her on the bed. “How would you like to break into the aquarium after-hours to help me and some other people free a certain exhibit?”

Jade raises her eyebrows. “Oh? Breaking and entering? Artemis, I thought you left that life behind when daddy dearest got put in jail!” Artemis shoots her a glare that displays just how strongly she feels about that statement. “Oooh, did that bother you?” Jade teases.

“Just answer the question, Jade. Are you going to help us or not?”

“It depends,” Jade says slyly as she pulls out her pocket dagger to spin between her fingers instead of the pencil, “Would this exhibit happen to be that merboy Tim?”

Artemis gapes. “How did you – that’s a secret - !” she splutters, at a loss for words. Her sister laughs.

“Puh-lease, Sis. Believe it or not, I actually have better things to do with my time than toy with Red all day long. Sometimes I like to go out on my own and do my own thing, like spy on you.” Artemis gives her a flat stare. Jade smirks. “Getting annoyed that I won’t answer your little question? Fine,” she says, “I’ll help. Like I could ever resist some breaking and entering!”

She stands, and without waiting for a response, walks out the door.

“I’ll text you with more details!” Artemis calls out after her, and then sighs.

One down (for her), one to go.

She grabs her laptop from her desk, then returns to sit on her bed again. Opening it up and unlocking it, she clicks on the Skype icon. Luckily, Babs is (as per usual) online.

“What can I do for you, O Immortal Goddess of the Hunt?” Babs says as she answers the call. Artemis cracks a grin and leans back in her bed.

“How would you like to take our protesting to the next level?” Barbara stops her typing and looks away from one of her numerous screens so she can look straight in the webcam.

“What do you mean?” she asks suspiciously, “Artemis Lian Crock, this sounds somewhat illegal – how many times do I have to remind you that my father is the police Commissioner?”

Artemis scoffs. Barbara says that about everything, but still hacks the Pentagon and crashes the Westboro Baptist Church’s site on a regular basis. “The thing is,” she says, “I took your advice and looked into what Roy was doing at the aquarium. Turns out, Tirta is capable of speech – his real name is Timothy, and he’s actually a prince. Roy was trying to teach him English.” She too looks straight into the webcam. “Look, Babs, if we needed to get him out before, we  _really_  need to now.”

Barbara frowns, looking decidedly furious at the revelation. “That’s great and all, but do you have the means to break a 10-foot-long merboy out of a sophisticated aquarium funded by Lex Luthor? Because if you do, why have you been hiding them?”

The blonde gnaws on her lip. “Jade already told me she’d help with the break-in, and Roy’s working on getting permission to use Ron’s boat. We’ve also got two mermaids – part of a search party for Tim – that have a unique shifting ability that allows them walk on land. We were figuring you could cover the security system issue for us. Do a little hacking mojo, cover our asses, etc.”

Babs is quiet for a moment, thinking. “Okay,” she says finally. “If you can pull this all together and get a solid, concrete plan that has a chance of succeeding, I’m in.”

Artemis grins triumphantly, breathing out a sigh of relief. “Thanks, O Mighty, All-Seeing Oracle.”

Barbara snorts at the nickname. “No problemo, Artemis. You get cracking on those plans, now.”

-X-

The group rendezvous at the same benches the next morning, Ron in tow. When Diana arches her eyebrow at him, Roy rushes to explain the situation and the deal he made. Ron seems more than a little enraptured in Donna, however.

“Very well,” Diana says, “Come, let him see the horrors that Tim endures.”

They enter the exhibit again (“Seriously, don’t you people have anything to do?” the girl in the ticket booth asks with a huff), Artemis looking furious at being forced into paying for a ticket for the first time. There’s a couple holding hands and staring into Tim’s tank, waiting for an appearance from the merboy (because nothing says  _romance_  like forced captivity of intelligent beings!), but a sharp glare from Diana quickly changes their mind and they scurry out of the room.

Tim emerges shortly after. He swims to the surface, but his face is downcast and he doesn’t say a word. He appears to still be upset about the ordeal the day before.

“Tim,” Donna says. He barely looks up. “This is Roy’s brother, Ron,” she says in his native tongue. “He’ll be driving the boat we’re using to help you escape.” She then turns to Ron and speaks in a lower tone. “Do you think your boat will be big enough to carry him?

Ron looks over Tim with a critical eye. “I think so,” he finally says, slowly. He’ll probably get jostled around some, but I’d be right in assuming you want a quick boat for a quick getaway?”

Diana nods. “If that is all,” she says, “Perhaps we could move this to a more…private location?”

Roy looks at Tim, who seems to understand what she’s saying. Guilt rises up his throat, burning like bile. “Actually, could we stay here for a while? I feel bad about yesterday.” If anything, this would only delay their plans, but…Roy feels like it’s necessary. The hurt in Tim’s eyes had haunted his dreams last night, making it difficult to sleep.

“I’d, uh, like to stay too,” Ron speaks up. “I’d like to speak more to…Tim.”

“I’ll go with you two,” Artemis says to the Amazons, sighing. “I’ll fill you in on the details later, okay?” They nod, and the women leave.

“Hey, Tim,” Roy says after a minute. Tim barely responds, only offering a short grunt of acknowledgment. “This is my older brother Ron. He’s a dumbass and doesn’t think you can actually talk. Wanna prove him wrong?”

Tim glances up through his wet bangs, but looks back down just as quickly. Roy heaves a sigh. “Look, Tim,” he pleads, “I’m sorry about yesterday, okay? But look, I’m here now, and we’ve already got a plan in the works."

Beside him, Ron snorts. “You must really like this kid," he says to Roy, “You  _apologized_  to him." Turning to Tim, he stage whispers, “Roy never apologizes to anyone. Ever." Tim looks up again, letting out a breath of air.

"You look like Roy," he says, finally, to Ron. “Like…mirror." Ron blinks. The kid’s higher voice betrays just how young he is - probably only a year or two younger than Roy. Or, well, the mermaid equivalent. Ron’s not sure if they age at the same rate as human’s do. Regardless, he’s strangely touched by the boy’s comment. Ron and Roy used to look identical to each other - scarily so, like twins, despite their eight-year difference. Roy had gotten sick of people mistaking them for each other after his kidnapping, and in a fit, shaved his head. No one mixed them up anymore; in fact, they hardly looked past their hair to see the stunningly similar features anymore.

"Heh," he breathes out, “You noticed. But I’m eight years older than this dumbass here. Not his twin." Twin, mirror…close enough.

"Nice to meet you, Ron," Tim says, remembering one of the first things Artemis taught him. His words are still heavily accented, but he’s working on that. Ron returns the greeting, and beside him, Roy grumbles.

"What am I, chopped liver?" He says it under his breath, but it carries, and Tim snorts in amusement. Idioms and insults were Roy’s favorite thing to teach him (Artemis had punched the redhead when she found out that Tim knew the meaning of “dumbass" but couldn’t conjugate a sentence enough to form a simple greeting).

"No. You is soggy seaweed," he says simply, “All mushy in head." He points to his head for emphasis, and Ron lets out a loud guffaw of laughter.

"I like this kid!"

-X-

Lex Luthor shuffles through the paperwork on his desk. He picks up a small packet, a typed up report from one of his men, and feels his eyebrows rise. “So the mermaid boy has some friends, eh?" Flipping through the pages, he stops on a screenshot from a security camera detailing three women and one boy - little Roy Harper, actually. The child looked so different without all his hair. “Interesting," he says with a dangerous tone to his voice.

 Luthor turns, looking up to his assistant standing behind him. “Mercy, do me a favor and get the aquarium head on the phone. We have some  _things_  to discuss." She nods, picking up the phone and dialing.

"Now, Roy Harper, I thought we had an agreement," he says quietly, “Such a shame you had to go behind my back and pull a stunt like this."

-X-

Roy wakes up at 2AM to someone pounding on his door.

"What the fuck do you want?" He half growls, half grumbles into his pillow. “Jesus Christ, can’t it wait until after the sun’s up?" Whoever that is seems to take that as an invitation to enter his room, despite the fact that he keeps his door locked when he’s sleeping.

"Wake up, Harper!" Artemis hisses, “It’s Tim!"

That has him awake and scrambling to sit upright in seconds.

"What?" He gasps as he switches on his bedside lamp and quickly unlocks the door, “What about him?" Artemis, with her pajamas on and hair rumpled, looks like she was just woken up too.

"Babs just called me," she says. “She’s been keeping an eye on Luthor, and something just came up on her radar. I guess Luthor caught on to us or something, because he’s scheduled for Tim to be moved to a ‘private enclosure’ so he can receive better medical attention for his condition, or some bullshit like that."

Roy blinks at her, tired mind taking longer to process the sudden information. “When?" He asks slowly, dreading the answer.

"Tomorrow," she responds curtly.

"D’you mean tomorrow like  _when the sun comes up later today_ tomorrow, or actually  _tomorrow_ tomorrow?" If she means the former, then they’re kind of busted. Breaking into an aquarium is one thing, but breaking into one of Luthor’s probably landlocked research facilities and then breaking out with a ten-foot merboy is completely different and basically impossible.

"Tomorrow tomorrow, fortunately. But that means we have to move our plan up to tonight, plus account for any additional guards." Artemis slumps against his doorframe, looking completely exhausted. “This is a nightmare, Roy."

"Yeah," he responds distantly, eyes glazed over in thought, “It is."

-X-

Diana is furious when she hears the news. “I would like to meet with this Lex Luthor," she says slowly, “and I would very much like to strangle him with my lasso. Or punch him in the face. Both options sound equally appealing at this point. By the gods," she mutters, “This is a disaster."

Donna looks grim. “We’ll just have to do it tonight," she sighs. “It’s risky, but if what you tell us of this Luthor character is true, then this is the safer option." She shakes her head ruefully. “Oh, if only Bruce were here. He’d break that man’s nose, then turn around and declare diplomatic immunity." She looks Roy in the eye. “Bruce can be fiercely overprotective when it comes to his children. Sometimes ridiculously. He loves his kids to pieces, and hurting them is a sure fire way to be banned to the deepest and darkest chambers of the Arkham prison."

Roy raises an eyebrow. Sounds like a scary guy; he wonders just how much Tim takes after him.

"Let’s go over our plan once more," Diana says, and then turns to Artemis. “Can your friends meet us somewhere so we can all talk together?" Artemis shrugs, pulling out her phone and dialing Jade’s number. Ron, standing between Roy and Artemis, frowns and turns to his brother.

"Who else do you have with you guys? I thought it was just the five of us."

"Just Jade and Artemis’ friend Barbara." Roy responds, cringing internally.

"Are you serious?" comes the expected outburst. “I thought you and Artemis were  _with me_ on getting Jade out of the life! News flash, Roy, but having her help in a break-in isn’t exactly  _helping!_ " Though Jade’s bad girl attitude was what had initially caught Ron’s eye, he’d been fighting to get her to leave her life of crime behind. He had every right to be angry.

"Well, do you have any better ideas?" Roy retorts angrily, “If so, you better fess up now, because we don’t exactly have a lot of options here, and Jade is the best we could think of for the job! Besides, you know just as well as I do that she won’t get caught."

Ron huffs. The last point may be true - Jade never gets caught, she always magically disappears like the Cheshire Cat she’s so obsessed with - but that doesn’t mean he’s still comfortable with it. There’s a first time for everything, and he’d rather not be kissing a glass barrier with Jade wearing prison orange. He doesn’t have a retort though, because try as he might, he can’t think of anyone else better suited to their unique job.

"Fine," he huffs, “But I swear to god, if any of you guys get caught, there will be hell to pay."

Roy smirks. “Don’t worry, Red," he leers, dropping Jade’s name for his brother, “We’ll be fine."

-X-

Roy double-checks the contents of his bag that evening, making sure he had everything he thinks he needs. He hasn’t exactly been…open about it, but he has a fondness for explosives. He’d never use them like a terrorist to hurt innocent people, but Luthor and his men aren’t innocent. If they get in his way tonight, they will regret it.

Gulping, he goes back to pacing the length of his room. His nerves have been acting up so much that he hadn’t been able to eat dinner. Even now, his stomach clenches uncomfortably at the thought of food. This is it. They’re doing it tonight. They’re finally returning Tim to his proper home.

Roy finds that he’s oddly sad about Tim leaving. They haven’t known each other long, but they  _bonded_ , okay? But now he’ll probably never see the merboy again (it’ll be much too dangerous, especially considering that Luthor will probably have his eye on Roy after this stunt). He’ll miss his laugh that sounds like a bubbling creek, the dimple he has in his left cheek when he smiles, how his face scrunches up when he’s concentrating, the accented sarcasm, that one piece of hair that always stick up, and the way his eyes light up when he sees Roy.

Tim would scoff and tell him he was being a sissy for thinking thoughts like that (jerk, using the words Roy taught him against him), and Roy would sooner die than admit he was thinking like that. What the thoughts imply scares him, because  _what if he isn’t straight?_ What if he actually has to come out to his family? What if they don’t accept him? What if he’s bullied at school?

He sighs and collapses on his bed, pushing his selfish worries aside. This is for the best, he reminds himself. Tim probably won’t survive the summer if he doesn’t get out soon.

A knock on his door breaks him out of his thoughts.

"Roy? Are you feeling okay, honey?" Dinah’s voice filters in from the hallway, and his stomach churns as his fears from moments ago rise up again. “Do you need a bucket or something in case you throw up?" Roy coughs, trying to feign illness.

"No, ah - I’m good. I think I’m just gonna go to sleep early tonight, if that’s okay?" he calls back. There’s a pause as Dinah thinks, obviously not entirely fooled by Roy’s act.

"Okay, if you’re  _sure_ …"

"I am! Don’t worry, I’m already in my pajamas and in bed." After a moment, he hears Dinah walking away. Roy heaves a sigh of relief, and then checks the locks on his door for the fourth time to make sure they’re securely locked.

A few minutes later, he gets a text from Artemis (who is “spending the night with Babs"). He takes a deep breath, pushes everything that isn’t relevant to the present aside, then slips his bag over his shoulder and ducks out of his window as quietly as possible.

It’s time to head out.

-X-

When they meet up three blocks from the aquarium, Artemis hands everyone Bluetooth earpieces. “They’re all on the same frequency," she explains, “Babs is online too; she’ll be giving us instructions as we move. Everybody working?"

They test them, giving her affirmative nods.

"Hold on a sec," Roy speaks up, “Can we have code names? I wanna be Arsenal."

"I’ll be Cheshire," Jade volunteers with a sly grin on her face. Her wild black mane is tied back in a ponytail, and with her black ski mask, all Roy can see of her face is her eyes and smirking mouth. “You can be Alice," she says to Artemis, grasping a strand of the long blonde hair in her hand.

"I’ll stick with Artemis, thanks," her sister huffs, jerking away from Jade’s grasp.

"I’ll be Oracle," Babs’ voice comes over the earpieces suddenly, startling them all.

"My sister and I will refrain from code names, as we have no identity on the surface." Diana says. “If the matter is settled, we should begin making our way."

When they reach the aquarium, Jade takes the lead. She and Barbara work well, working in tandem to tackle the security system and the few security officers.

As the plan had dictated, Tim is waiting for them. Barbara hacks the security cameras and sets them on a loop, then instructs the rest to move forward. Silent as a shadow, Tim slips over the door between his current tank and the one they put him in when his main one needs to be cleaned. Jade carefully pushes the button that opens the doors, then pushes it again to close it once Tim is through.

The new tank is in a large back room full of spare tanks for other exhibits nearby.

"This is the hard part," Donna mutters to herself. Focusing, she begins weaving the spell needed. She’s no mage, preferring the warrior lifestyle instead, but Zatanna tells her she has talent. Now, she puts everything she has into getting the one of the few spells she actually knows absolutely perfect.

Roy, Jade, and Artemis watch, stunned, as Tim slowly begins to levitate out of the tank, carefully ensconced in an elongated bubble of water. Slowly, carefully, Donna begins moving towards the large garage door to the outside. Artemis and Jade move, opening the door as quickly and quietly as possible. Roy takes the opportunity to slip a small explosive on the door between tanks; it’s on a timer (not set to go off until the wee hours of the morning and long after they’re gone) and will hardly cause any serious damage.

On the other side of the door wait four armed guards; Roy, Jade, and Diana take three of them out with a few well-timed moves, while Artemis knocks out the fourth with a weighted, blunt arrow to the head. Quickly, they move the guards aside, and then give Ron the signal to move in from where he’s waiting in his boat.

He appears a minute later, moving the boat as quickly as he can while not alerting everyone on the river to their presence. Artemis quickly secures the boat so Donna can safely guide Tim onto the cot lying down the middle of the speedboat. They’ve got a tarp lying over it and numerous containers of water to keep Tim as hydrated and wet as he needs to be. As Donna carefully lays Tim on the cot, a patrolling guard comes around the corner, and then freezes when he catches sight of them.

"Halt!" He orders, gun up and trained of their boat. “Do not move any further! Put your hands in the air where I can see them!" Then, he pulls out his radio, saying something about intruders and needing backup. Roy takes the opportunity to use the hidden blade in his arm to slice the rope connecting the boat to the dock, urging Ron to move now!

"Hey! I said freeze!" The guard called, raising his gun once more at the sound of Ron’s engine revving. When they don’t stop, he fires. Artemis shoots two more arrows before she decides she can’t risk wasting any more. Roy reaches into his bag and pulls out another minor explosive, throwing it so that it will land in the water when it blows and not hurt any of the guards.

Within seconds, they’re out of his reach (and Babs’ comm links’ range) and speeding down the river towards the Chesapeake Bay, and then the ocean. For the first few minutes, they’re quiet, still tense from the encounter with the guard, and then suddenly, Roy bursts into laughter. He laughs and laughs and laughs, but he cannot stop. The laughter is infectious, and soon enough even Diana and Tim are chuckling.

"Thank you," Tim finally manages to say. “Thank you, Roy, and Artemis, and Jade, and Ron -"

"Hey," Ron cuts in, “We still have a long ways to go until you’re in safe waters. We can’t afford to have a false sense of security right now." His comment sobers the group and their focus instead turns to the dark waters before them.

They travel for what feels like hours, long enough for the sun to start peeking out over the horizon, with Roy periodically dribbling water over Tim’s gills and tail (for the first time, Roy is grateful to Ron’s friend Vic for the ‘upgrades’ and ‘enhancements’ he made to the boat; it’s made their ride much faster than it would be otherwise). Every bump and jerk jars the merboy and makes him wince. At some point, his hand manages to ensconce Roy’s flesh one in a tight grip, and Roy finds his spare hand tracing the intricate tattoo on Tim’s bicep. Tim mutters something under his breath in his language, and the repetitive syllables sound like a mantra or prayer to Roy’s ears.

Then, suddenly, just as the ocean is visible before them, they hear the sound of a boat engine. Roy and Artemis whirl around while Tim strains to see over the side. In the distance behind them, a large boat is barely visible. It’s gaining quickly, and Ron curses.

"My boat is fast," he says angrily, “but I doubt it’s fast enough to evade them with what’s currently in the gas tank, and filling ‘er up right now would only get us caught."

"Then we go down fighting," Tim replies, determined. He’s got a knife clutched in one pale hand, though in his condition even he’s aware that he’ll hardly be able to put up a fight. Still, at this point, any resistance is better than none.

"I bet that sounded better in your head," Roy snorts, readying an explosive arrow for the bow he had stashed in Ron’s boat the night before (he supposes all those archery lessons Ollie had made him do are finally coming to use).

"Enough chatter," Diana says grimly, “It is time to prepare for battle." She nods at Donna, who promptly strips and dives into the water. The shift is instantaneous, though her sparkling black tail is hardly visible in the murky and polluted water. She gags; swimming in the Bay’s water is the mermaid equivalent of a human walking through a thick cloud of cigarette smoke. Nevertheless, she accepts the spear her sister tosses her and ducks under the surface again. “My sister will slow them down," Diana says as she shrugs off her jacket to reveal a shimmering silver pair of cuffs on each arm, “but we must be ready for retaliation."

Behind them, Donna makes her way towards the pursuing boat. The water burns her eyes and makes her gills stick together, but she still refuses to surface for fear of alerting the enemy to her position. She approaches from so far underneath that she can barely see the bottom of the large boat through the murkiness of the water. Finally, when she is directly beneath it, she shoots upward as fast as she can, spear in hand.

The enchanted metal pierces the enforced hull like it’s nothing more than wet paper. Donna quickly yanks the spear out, and then stabs the hull again and again. Already, she can see the boat losing its buoyancy as it sinks further and further into the water. All she can hear from her position is the engine, but she likes to imagine that the men above her are screaming and panicking. Just for good measure, she uses her spear to carve a single word in the underneath of the boat - "κακός," or “evil” in English. Deciding that she’s done enough for the moment, Donna turns around and swims after Ron’s boat.

However, when she’s little more than halfway there, she hears more boats approaching. Surfacing for just a moment, Donna finds that several of the boat’s occupants abandoned ship in favor of lifeboats, choosing to pursue their original target rather than returning to shore. She ducks under water once more and moves to intercept them.

Sinking these “ships” is much easier; they’re flimsy and nothing more than plastic inflated with air. Puncture them once, and they sink almost immediately. However, they are much lighter, and therefore much faster. One of the ships manages to escape her spear, making its way towards Tim’s boat.

Above the surface, those in the boat watch as the approaching lifeboats are quickly sunken one by one by what appears to be an invisible force. Well, all except one. A boat at the back end of the formation escapes unscathed, speeding closer as they cross into the ocean. Roy can just make out a distinctive bald head, and he curses.

“Dammit,” he bites out, “Of  _course_  Luthor came out here personally. Of course.” Beside him, Artemis rolls her eyes and huffs, but her body language gives away just how angry she is as well.

“ _Duh_ , Arsenal,” she says mockingly, using his code name, “Like he  _wouldn’t_  come out personally to retrieve his  _favorite pet_ ,” she spits with disdain, notching her bow with one of the explosive arrows she notched from him and aiming it at Luthor’s ship.

“There are only two persons in that ship,” Diana says, almost as a side note. “Odd.”

Roy squints. “It’s Luthor and his right hand woman, ah…Mercy, I think her name is,” he says, and tilts his head, because, “Wait a second, can she use the force? Why’s she sticking her hand out like that?” She’s holding her arm perpendicular to her body, palm flat and facing out towards their boat, and supporting it with her other arm. Almost like a…

…like a  _gun_.

Roy’s eyes widen and shouts, “Quick! Swerve left!” as the woman shoots a  _fucking missile_ from her arm straight at them. Ron doesn’t argue, quickly jerking the boat to the left. They dodge the missile, but only just, and the resulting wave almost causes Tim to roll right off his cot and into the ocean. He yelps and curses something fowl enough to cause Diana’s eyebrows to rise, but manages to stay in the boat.

The sudden swerve loses them some much-needed distance, however. The pursuing pair is close enough that there’s no way for them to miss. Mercy aims her arm/gun/weapon  _thing_  at them again, but this time Jade intercepts with a few well-aimed throwing knives. One hits right in her arm/gun thing, causing it to spark ominously, while the other buries itself deep in her shoulder.

Rather than her screaming (or at least  _wincing_ ) and bleeding, she only frowns as the “wound” sparks. However, Luthor pulls a gun out of his jacket, and quickly aims it at their boat. Roy and Artemis exchange a quick glance, and then together, release their arrows. Both land right in the front of Luthor’s boat, and he barely has a second to glance down before they explode.

The explosions aren’t huge, dulled a bit by the water, but they’re still strong enough to destroy the flimsy lifeboat and send both Luthor and Mercy flying into the ocean. When neither one emerges after a few seconds (Roy pushes the thought aside, they have more pressing matters to focus on), Ron speeds further out into the ocean. When the shore is almost completely out of sight, he finally stops to refuel with the extra gas canisters he’d thought to stash on the boat. It’s only then that his thoughts are voiced, though by Artemis, surprisingly.

“Luthor…” she begins, hesitating, “Did we…? Is he…?”

“Probably not,” Jade replies, pulling off her ski mask. “Odds are, he has more grunts following behind as backup. They’ll pick him up. However,” she says as she pushes her hair out of her face, “that Mercy woman…I’m not so sure about her. She didn’t look like the kind to bleed, if you know what I mean. Either way,” she shrugs, “It will be very hard for Luthor to cover up his… _extracurriculars_  when they find her.”

Donna chooses that moment to emerge from the water. “Is everyone okay? I saw some explosions and possibly some flying bodies!”

“We’re all fine on this end,” Artemis says.

Tim struggles to sit upright again, and calls for Donna. With some work, she manages to perch on the platform of the boat (she’s not about to shift; she knows how some humans can be around bare female bodies). Tim beams when he sees her.

“ _You ready?_ ” She asks in his language, “ _We’re almost at the designated drop-off point._ ” He nods enthusiastically.

“ _At this point, I’d **welcome**  Damian tugging on my tail fins!_” She laughs; Damian’s “bad habit” well known amongst their circle.

They continue to converse quietly as Ron refuels, though Roy looks put out. “What’re they talking about?” he asks, trying to sound curious instead of jealous.

Diana smirks. “Tim’s younger brother is quite the menace,” is all she says, leaving Roy scowling as he thinks the statement over.

“Hey, Your Majesty,” Ron calls from the front, now done with refueling. “How much further out?” Diana surveys their surroundings, and then dips her hand in the water.

After a moment’s thought, she responds, “Approximately another half an hour south east.” Ron nods, then goes about preparing the boat for driving again.

“ _We are still very far from Gotham,_ ” Tim frowns. He doesn’t want to admit it, but he doesn’t think he can handle a long-distance trip at the moment.

“ _Bruce is sending Dick and Clark along with some of his fastest hippocampi to fetch you,_ ” Donna responds. As she expected, Tim’s face lights up at the mention of his eldest brother.

Off to the side, Roy frowns as he listens to Donna and Tim babble in their language. He can’t understand a word of it, but whatever they’re talking about has the merboy truly happy and smiling for the first time since Roy’s known him. Sure, Tim had smiled and laughed back in the aquarium with Roy, but out here in the ocean, it’s like a weight has been lifted off his shoulders. Roy wonders what, exactly, has done the trick - being out the aquarium, being so close to home, or being able to freely converse? Personally, he thinks it’s a mix of all three.

“Alright,” Ron breaks in, “We’re gonna move again; everybody buckle in. Donna, you swimming or riding?”

“I think I’ll swim,” she says, “I need to clear all of that river water out of my gills.” She pats Tim’s tail - all of him that she can reach from her location - then slips back into the water. He looks sad to see her go, but Diana quickly takes a seat opposite of Roy on Tim’s other side.

She runs a hand (unwebbed, as they are in her human form) through his hair and he leans into the touch. “ _We’re almost there. Do not fret._ ” Roy, feeling like he’s intruding on something, looks away as Artemis sits down in the seat across from him.

She kicks her feet up on his knees, ignoring the way he scowls and tries to shove her off, and crosses her arms as she watches the waves go by. Soon, her head is nodding. Roy doesn’t blame her - it’s been a long night, and the adrenalin is starting to wear off for him too. Just the thought makes him yawn.

Behind him, he can hear Jade murmuring something to Ron, which makes him laugh. Roy sincerely hopes they’re keeping it clean; he feels like dirty talk and foreplay is something you just shouldn’t do in front of  _royalty_  like Diana and Donna.

(For a moment, Roy entertains the thought of how merpeople have sex. Then he remembers that Diana is sitting no more than three feet away from him, and wonders if she can read minds. Quickly, he tries to steer his thoughts in another direction.)

Eventually, the boat slows, and then comes to a stop. Donna isn’t far behind, and pops up next to Ron.

“Just a bit further,” she calls, “I can see them; they’re a couple hundred feet over to the right.” Ron obliges, going slow and following the almost-invisible black head of hair sticking up out of the waves. After a few seconds, she raises a hand to signal Ron to stop.

As if on cue, two more heads pop up from the waves. One is a man who looks to be about Ollie’s age, the other is a teenager who looks closer to Artemis’ age. Diana smiles, and stands.

“ _Clark! Dick!_ ” She calls, “ _We have him; he’s safe!_ ” The younger one lets out a whoop of joy, while the elder grins so wide his face almost breaks in half. Roy automatically looks to the woman, seeking a translation, but her attention is on Tim and helping him into an upright position. The younger of the two mermen swims forward the instant he catches sight of Tim’s face, and immediately looks like he wants to cry (whether tears of happiness at seeing Tim or sadness at seeing his condition is hard to tell). Donna, however, in a quick maneuver that Roy doesn’t quite catch, whaps the man upside the head with her tail (for the first time, he gets a good look at her tail; it reminds him of the fish in the  _Rainbow Fish_ book he read as a child) and scolds him.

She carefully repeats the same spell she performed back in the aquarium, drawing a large oblong bubble of water out of the sea to wrap around Tim. Then, she carefully picks him up and deposits him in the ocean. Roy races to the side of the boat just in time to see Tim and the merman disappear underwater.

“Who are they?” Roy finally manages to ask. Diana smiles fondly.

“The younger one is Richard, or Dick, Tim’s eldest brother. The older one is one of his father’s best friends, practically an uncle to Bruce’s sons.”

“Oh,” is all Roy can say in response to that. Suddenly, irrationally, he feels like he is under scrutiny from these men. What if he’s somehow hurt Tim? What if they think it’s taken him too long to get him out of the aquarium? He gulps, but remains standing next to Diana. Artemis comes to stand on his other side just as Tim and Dick resurface.

Tim is beaming, and looks happier than Roy’s ever seen him. “Roy!” he calls, swimming up to the side of the boat as Roy leans over the edge. “This is  _my_  brother, Dick!  _Dick, this is Roy. He is the first one I talked to on the surface._ ” Dick bows his head in thanks to Roy, then lightly bumps Tim’s shoulder and waggles his eyebrows.

Tim rolls his eyes and, mirroring Donna, whacks Dick with his tail. The elder teen winces and rubs his poor, abused head, but doesn’t retaliate with anything more than a smile. Roy starts when he feels Diana suddenly move from his side. Turning, he gets a face full of her stripping (yeah, she’s gorgeous, but he feels suspiciously like Aktaion spying on the goddess Artemis as she bathes, just moments before she turns him into a stag and incites his own hunting hounds to devour him). Respectfully, he chooses to instead turn his gaze back to the mermen and Donna, who are all laughing at the blush he feels burning up his neck and cheeks.

After a few seconds he hears a splash, then Diana surfaces alongside Donna. Roy feels his smile begin to fade; he can’t help but think the merpeople are moments away from leaving now. After all the work they’ve done for this moment, he’s still not sure if he’s ready for it to happen.

Diana circles Tim a few times, looking him over. Through the water, Roy can just make out the flash of her bright red tail. She murmurs something to Tim, and then looks up at the four on the boat.

“It’s about time for us to leave if we want to make it back to Gotham in a reasonable time,” she says. Roy feels like he’s deflating.

Tim swims up to everyone in the boat, thanking them all for their efforts in rescuing him. He comes up to Roy last. For a moment, he’s silent. Then, “Thank you, Roy. Thank you  _most_.” He looks up at him with sad eyes (a different sad than what they were in the tank, Roy notes absently), and adds, “Will miss you,” he frowns, nose scrunching up as he tries to find the words, and, “Huge…missing.” Roy lets out a sad breath of laughter at the butchered English. “Goodbye, Roy.”

Roy reaches down and clasps Tim’s webbed hand in his own flesh one.

“Goodbye, Tim. I’ll miss you too.”

Slowly, reluctantly, Tim lets go. He follows after the other merpeople, ducking under the water. Roy gets one last glimpse at his tail, and then he’s gone.

Everyone on the boat is silent as they stare at the water where the merpeople disappeared. Even Jade doesn’t seem to have anything to say, leaning her head against Ron’s shoulder.

“So…what now?” Artemis says, breaking the silence.

She’s answered by the sound of Roy’s cell phone blaring some obnoxious, out-of-date pop tune. He checks the caller ID, and pales.

_Dinah._

-X-

“ _This is Cat Grant from GBS News, and I reporting live from the National Aquarium in Baltimore, Maryland. Late last night, a cover group entered the aquarium, and stole - yes, **stole**  - one of their biggest attractions: the merboy Tirta. The group managed to hack the security cameras and motion sensors, allowing them to have free reign in the aquarium._

_“Though several guards were on duty, all but one were knocked out before they got a look at the intruders. That one is currently in the hospital with minor injuries and a severe concussion from a small explosion the thieves set off in their escape. The eyewitness, whose name has not yet been released to the public, cannot remember any specifics other than that all of the intruders were wearing black._

_“In related news, multi-billionaire CEO and funder of Tirta’s exhibit **Lex Luthor** and his secretary **Mercy Graves**  were reported missing early this morning. It’s possible that Tirta’s captors went after Luthor as revenge, but as of now the police have no solid leads. If you have any information, please call the number on your screen. Back to you, Linda.”_

-X-

When Ron and Roy and Artemis trudge back into the house, hungry and exhausted, later that evening (it had taken even more time to drive back, what with following speed limit laws and the such), Ollie and Dinah are waiting for them on the couch. Roy’s sure he’s never seen Dinah so angry in his entire life.

“Hello, you three,” Dinah says coldly. “And just  _what, pray tell,_  have you been up to for the past, oh,  _twenty hours_  or so that required all of you to  _lie to me_ about your whereabouts? Nothing  _illegal_ , I hope,” she says as she folds her hands on her lap.

“We were just out on Ron’s boat,” Artemis tries, but the young woman has always been a shit liar and that fact isn’t about to change tonight.

“Yes, I gathered that much from the brief phone call earlier,” Dinah responds. “What were you  _really_  doing?

“Rescuing a kidnapping victim?” Roy attempts, hoping that it sounds too outlandish for her to believe. Except, well, suddenly Dinah goes pale, and Ollie groans and kind of face palms.

“You didn’t,” she says, sounding like she’s dreading the answer. “Oh my god.  _Please_ , tell me you three weren’t the gang that broke that merboy out of the aquarium last night.”

“Um…It wasn’t us that broke the merboy out of the aquarium last night?” Ron may be 23 years old, but  _nobody_  lies to Dinah Lance-Queen and gets away with it in the long run.

Dinah bows her head and is silent for a long moment. Even Ollie looks scared at the lack of immediate response, watching as her grip tightens and her knuckles whiten.

“I don’t know whether to ground you for the rest of your lives,” she says slowly, dangerously, “or to give you a trophy and take you out for ice cream.” She closes her eyes and lets out a heavy sigh. “While what you guys did probably saved that merboy in the long run, you still are guilty of breaking and entering, destruction of property, stealing, and who knows how many other things. Ollie and I will have a  _long discussion_  about this, trust me, but don’t think you’re going to get off without any punishment.”

Dinah stands, hands on her hips. “Just…go to your rooms for now. I’ll let you know when Ollie and I have come to an agreement about your punishments.”

“But, I’m twenty-three!” Ron tries to protest.

“As long as you live in this house, you abide by my rules.” Dinah cuts him off, leaving no room for argument. “Now, go. I don’t want to hear a  _peep_  from any of you until dinner or I call you down, whichever one comes first. Shoo.”

The three blink at her, then turn and slowly trudge up to their rooms.

-X-

The ride back to Gotham takes longer than Tim likes, but he relishes every second of it now that he’s back in the ocean. Bruce is waiting for them just inside the border, along with the rest of Tim’s family. Tim forgets his exhaustion and launches himself out of the chariot and into Bruce’s waiting arms with a hug to rival Dick’s. He’s crying, and he thinks Bruce might be crying too, and now everyone’s coming together to hug him, and Damian’s tugging on his dumb tail fins, and this is really happening in far too public space.

Tim pulls back, takes a deep breath, and says, “Can we move this somewhere more private?” After months of being out on display for the entire world to see, he’s quite ready for some privacy. Bruce looks reluctant to let go, but guides him to one of the nearby buildings Tim distantly recognizes as one of the summer homes they never use due to its proximity to the border, while Clark stays outside to make sure the hippocampi don’t swim off.

“I’m glad you’re safe, Tim,” Bruce says quietly, “It’s good to have you home.”

As soon as the door is shut, Dick hugs him again, so tightly he thinks he can hear his spine crack.

“Dick…” Tim says good-naturedly, but doesn’t push him off. “You hugged me the entire way back.  _Really?_ ”

“Really,” Dick says, still not letting go. “I have to make up for lost time, and  _god_ , Timmy, I was so scared, and then Bruce said you had been  _captured_ , and we got a report from Donna that said  _humans_  caught you, and you scared the shit out of me, and I am never ever letting you out of my sight again,  _do you hear me?_ ”

“I hear you,” Tim smiles through his tears and returns the embrace. Well, until Cass manages to nudge Dick out of the way enough for her to get a good squeeze in. And really, Cass hugs are some of the best hugs, because she hugs like she  _means it_ , and it’s kind of _impossible_  to come out of a Cass hug and not feel  _amazing_.

“This is from Steph, too,” she says in his ear, and he smiles at the mention of her enthusiastic lady-in-waiting. Steph’s a good friend, and she’s probably in agony waiting back at the palace right now. “If I had legs,” she says, “I would’ve beaten everybody up and brought you back myself,” and  _boy_  does Tim believe it.

There’s the soft sound of someone quietly clearing their throat, and Cass moves aside to make room for Bruce not so subtly pushing Jason forward. When Jason stops short, Bruce hits him lightly with his tail and pushes him up more.

Jason bows his head, looking oddly guilty and repentant. “I’m, uh…sorry,” he says, and  _wow_ , Tim must be hallucinating. “Sorry for making you run off, and…yeah.” He gestures, and Tim blinks.

“Seriously?” He snorts. “It might be  _your_ fault I ran off, but it’s  _my_ fault I got caught. Don’t blame yourself for things that aren’t your fault.” Jason scowls, crossing his arms.

“I try apologizing, and  _this_  is the forgiveness I get? Why do I even  _bother?_ ” Behind him, Bruce rolls his eyes, and swats Jason upside the head. Tim is distracted when he feels Damian (and who else would it be?) tugging on his tail fins. He pulls his tail up, ignoring the twinge of pain, and lifts the scowling toddler into his arms.

“Dumb Drake,” Damian pouts, “Run off and let everyone know we exist.  _Stupid._ ” Tim huffs at Damian’s backhanded display of worry, but is touched nonetheless. He hugs the child for a quick second (because dammit, Damian may be a little shit, but he’s a little shit that Tim has  _missed_ ), and then hands the squirming toddler over to Dick, getting a tail to the face in the process.

“Come on,” Bruce says, guiding Tim back outside. “I think it’s time for us to head home. Alfred will have my head if we dawdle any longer.”

Tim can’t help but laugh.

-X-

_“This is Cat Grant from GBS News, reporting live from Virginia Beach, where the local coast guard recovered the remains of what appears to be one of Lex Luthor’s boats early yesterday evening. After several deflated lifeboats floated to shore yesterday morning, authorities went out to investigate and found this ship. Preliminary scans show that its hull was **pierced** , causing it to flood and then sink._

_“However, perhaps the most unusual thing about the bottom of the boat is the message that appears to be carved in it. In the hull, carved with what scientists believe to be ordinary metal, is the message ‘κακός,’ Greek for ‘evil.’ It’s unknown how the message got there, but scientists have said that the boat would not have made it out as far as it did had the message been carved before the boat had departed. There is speculation that it was done in retaliation by another **merperson** , but for now its origin remains unknown._

_“In related news, Lex Luthor is **still missing**. No body has been found, so police believe there is a chance he may still be alive. Interestingly enough, the remains of what appears to be some sort of **robo-skeleton**  were found not far from the wreckage of the ship. It appears to have been almost destroyed by some sort of fire or explosion, but scientists are saying they’ve never seen any technology like it before. If you have  **any**  tips, please call the number at the bottom of your screen. Again, this is Cat Grant with GBS News. Back to you, Linda.”_

-X-

“Roy!”

Roy sits up from where he’d been lazing on his bed when he hears Dinah calling him from downstairs.

“Roy, there’s someone here to see you!”

He frowns; he’s been grounded for the past month and half (with no signs of it being lifted anytime soon - what a way to spend his summer), so he doesn’t have any plans. He hasn’t even spoken to anyone outside of the household other than the mailman every now and then (at this point Roy almost wishes Dinah allowed Ron to have Jade over, but the woman has forbidden the man from having  _any_  visitors - though Roy is certain Jade sneaks in at night to bone Ron).

He stands and walks downstairs, and is shocked to find Donna standing just inside the foyer with Dinah.

“Donna?” he starts, surprised to see her. “What are you doing here?”

Dinah arches an eyebrow. “So you  _do_  know her?” she asks, and Roy slaps himself internally.

“She’s…a friend.” he says, not wanting to reveal any more than that, and Donna smiles when Dinah turns her critical gaze on her.

“Hello, Roy. It’s nice to see you again.” Roy frowns, still concerned about her reason for being  _in his front hall_.

“Is Tim okay? Did something happen?” She laughs.

“Tim’s  _fine_. He  _insisted_  that I tell you personally that he made it home safely.” Roy feels a weight lift off his shoulders ( _weeks of worrying and paranoia and bad dreams wiped away_ ), but Dinah frowns.

“Who’s Tim? Roy, have you been disobeying my explicit guidelines as to who you can contact while you’re grounded?” He almost facepalms, because there’s really no way to get out of this now, is there?

“I believe you know him by a different name,” Donna says, “Perhaps ‘Tirta’ is more familiar to you? That is the name you humans bestowed on him, correct?” Dinah’s eyebrows crease, then her eyes widen when she realizes just what that implies.

“How…?” she breathes, looking over Donna again.

“She’s a mermaid,” Roy explains, and the explanation sounds so stupid on his tongue, but really, what else is there to say? Of course, Dinah’s eyes go straight to Donna’s very human legs and their lack of scales or fins.

“It’s a specialty of my people,” Donna explains. “Only my kind can shed our scales and walk on land. Anyway,” she continues, “I am a mermaid Tim’s father, King Bruce Wayne of Gotham, sent to retrieve his son once he discovered Tim had been captured by humans.” Roy notices the subtle drop of Bruce’s title, and almost snickers. The Amazonian mermaids sure are fond of letting humans know just how big a deal Tim’s kidnapping was. “Roy and his friends were of great assistance to my sister and I, and Tim’s father asked me to deliver a token of his gratitude to those who helped us emancipate his son.” Dinah smiles, but still looks shocked.

She digs into her pocket, drawing out a pouch that she deposits in Roy’s hand. It’s heavy, and the contents shift slightly in his hand. “This one is for you,” she says, “I have a gift for each person that helped that night. I trust that they will all reach their intended recipient if I give them to you?”

Roy nods, speechless. He hadn’t expected a reward of any sort; in fact, he had expected never to see or hear from the merpeople society ever again, to be quite honest.

“That’s good to hear,” Donna smiles, handing four more pouches over to him. “Oh!” she says suddenly, reaching into her pocket again, “I almost forgot.” She hands Roy a bracelet of seashells woven together with some kind of twine. “Tim made this for you. He’ll have my head if I come back without having given it to you,” she laughs as Roy accepts the bracelet. Inspecting it, he finds that the shells are remarkably whole, unlike the chipped and shattered remains he usually finds on beaches.

“Tell him I say thank you,” Roy says as he wiggles it onto his wrist. “Oh, and his father, too. I wasn’t expecting a reward of any sort.”

Donna laughs again. “You weren’t expecting a reward? Roy, you and your friends saved a _prince of Gotham!_  If you lived underwater, Bruce would’ve knighted you and given you a place to stay in the palace for the rest of your life! Believe me, we’re  _all_  thankful for what you did.”

Roy snorts. “Yeah, me, a  _knight_. His majesty would regret that  _instantly_.” Even Dinah laughs at the thought.

“Anyway, it was a pleasure seeing you again, Roy,” Donna says. She draws him in for a quick, unexpected hug, then pulls away just as quickly. “I’ll be sure to pass along your words to Tim. Maybe I’ll drop in the next time I’ve got legs again to say hello; does that sound okay?”

“Yeah,” Roy replies, wondering just how often the Amazon mermaids come to land.

She waves, then walks out the front door, leaving Dinah and Roy standing in the foyer.

After a moment, Roy moves to the kitchen, Dinah following him. He deposits the others’ pouches on the table, then opens his own, cautiously emptying its contents onto the wooden surface.

“Holy  _shit_ ,” he says, and it speaks volumes that Dinah doesn’t even bother to admonish him, for she too is stunned by the pouch’s contents.

Before him lies a handful of precious gems, along with a short string of pearls, and what looks like two drachmas. He spots rubies and sapphires and all kinds of colorful stones, easily worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.

“Oh my god,” is all Dinah can say.

-X-

“Look, Tim. You realize this is a major, life-changing decision, right? This isn’t something you decide to do because of a whim or passing fancy.”

“I get it Zatanna, I do. Trust me, I’ve thought about this long and hard, and I’m very firm in my decision.”

A sigh.

“If you’re going to do this, you need to understand something. This is not a spell I can perform by snapping my fingers and swishing my tail, okay? I need at least two weeks’ notice - there are ingredients I need to collect for the potion, and I need time to clear my schedule so I can actually recover from this  _very draining spell_. Do you understand?”

“I do.”

“Look me in the eyes, Tim. I need to know that you’re serious.”

“Trust me, I am.”

-X-

Roy doesn’t hear from the merpeople community for a month after that. Then, right at the end of the summer before he has to go back to school, he gets the surprise of his life.

He’s dozing in bed early one morning (10AM is very early for a growing teenager like him, _Dinah_ ), when he’s abruptly ripped from unconsciousness by the sound of the doorbell. He groans, rolling over and pulling the sheets over his head, trying to go back to sleep, but then Dinah calls out for him.

“Roy!” She calls, sounding anxious and oddly excited. “Roy, come here! Come quick!”

That throws him for a loop.

Roy grumbles, slowly untangling his cocoon of blankets, and then stretching languidly like a cat. He scratches his stomach idly, pulling Tim’s bracelet down from his upper forearm where it had lodged itself in his sleep, then yawns widely and finally heads downstairs. He stops short halfway down the stairs when he sees who’s waiting for him in the foyer.

“ _Tim?_ ” he gasps, incredulous. It’s  _impossible_. Tim can’t…be on land. Tim has fins.  _A tail_. He definitely does not have two legs.

The imposter grins bashfully (Oh! Hello dimple, Roy’s missed you!). “Hello, Roy,” he says in perfect, unaccented English. Yet another tally in the ‘This is Definitely an Imposter’ column, because  _no way_  did Tim learn flawless English in a month and a half.  

Dinah smiles like she has a secret, then slips out to the living room (or so she wants them to think, because Roy knows she is totally just hiding behind the corner and eavesdropping), leaving Roy and the Imposter “alone” in the foyer.

“How is  _this_ ,” Roy begins gesturing to Tim’s…Tim’s  _legs_ , “possible?” The teen laughs.

“It’s pretty cool, isn’t it?” he says, looking down at his legs that  _should not exist_. “It’s a spell. One of my dad’s best friends is an extremely powerful sorceress who can pull off this kind of stuff.” Then, he pulls a small pendant out from under his shirt. “This has a translation charm on it,” he says, “My friend La’gaan gave it to me when he found out I was going to the surface world.”

Oh. That actually…kinda makes sense. He’d seen Donna do magic that night, but it had never really sunken in that it was, well,  _magic_. He supposes the merpeople community had to have  _something_  as their technology equivalent, but still.  _Magic_. It’s kinda hard to comprehend.

“Wow,” is all he can manage, and Tim smirks.

“Catfish got your tongue?” And Roy has to laugh at that.

“Maybe I’m just speechless at the sight of your amazing body,” he says, waggling his eyebrows and taking full advantage of the handy translation charm. Tim splutters, blushing, and gapes (pun fully intended) like a fish.

“My…what?” He manages to get out after a second, making Roy laugh again.

“We’re very forward here on land,” he says, winking. “Anyway,” he decides to move into more comfortable territory for Tim’s sake, “What’re you doing here? I mean, it’s great to see you again, but I thought you’d never so much as stick a  _fin_  above water again after what happened.”

Except, well, apparently it  _isn’t_  more comfortable territory for Tim, because suddenly he’s blushing full-force.

“I, uh…” he stammers, “I wanted to see you,” he says in a rush, words blending together. Roy blinks at the honesty, caught off guard, and then composes himself.

“I’m just that irresistible, huh?” He smirks, and Tim rolls his eyes.

“If by ‘irresistible’ you mean ‘about as appealing as soggy seaweed,’ then yes, you’re just that irresistible.” The redhead huffs, crossing his arms. Tim’s eyes dart to the prosthetic one, but before he can say anything, Roy starts talking again.

“C’mon,” he says, “Let’s move to my room; it’s more comfortable there.” Tim follows him up the stairs, along with a shout from Dinah:

“Leave the door open, you two!”

Roy rolls his eyes. “We’re not  _Ron and Jade_ , you know!” and the loud scoff he receives in return shows just how much Dinah agrees with  _that_  statement. He grumbles under his breath, but continues up the stairs, leading Tim to his room.

He feels the absurd need to straighten up, but settles for shuffling the shit on his desk into a pile and somewhat straightening his sheets. Roy offers Tim a seat on the oversized beanbag he got for Christmas, then takes a seat on his slightly-less-wrinkled-than-they-were-two-seconds-ago sheets.

“So,” he begins, “Explain to me  _why_  you went through all the effort of getting a pair of legs and a translation charm so you could risk coming up on land again  _just to see me?_ ” For some reason, that makes Tim look slightly sad.

“You saved my life,” Tim responds, “A quick visit from Donna and some money from my father just isn’t enough to express my thanks. I had to come thank you in person. Plus,” he adds in a quieter tone, “I missed your dumb face.” His eyes flash to Roy’s wrist, where he’s wearing the bracelet Donna dropped off a few weeks ago. “You’re wearing it! The bracelet!” he beams, and Roy thinks that all the times the dumb bracelet stabbed him painfully are suddenly worth it for how  _happy_  it makes Tim to see it.

“Huh? Oh, yeah,” Roy says, “Haven’t taken it off since Donna gave it to me,” and  _no, he is not blushing_. “Anyway,” he says, moving along to the more imperative point, “You missed my ‘dumb’ face?”

Tim heaves a sigh and rolls his eyes, kind of shrinking in on himself. “Out of everything I said, of  _course_  you pick up on  _that_.”

“But you  _did_  say it,” Roy counters, which only makes Tim blush again. “C’mon, admit it. You find my stupid face attractive. Please?” He adds in a slightly more genuine tone. Tim mutters something under his breath and looks away. Roy reaches out and pokes him with his foot, causing Tim to inch away in discomfort. “Louder,” he says with a smirk.  _Please. Admit it; show him he’s not crazy for having these insane feelings_.  _Show him that there’s something **there** , and that he hasn’t lost his mind._

“Fine. I find your stupid face attractive,” Tim mumbles just barely loud enough to be heard. But, it’s enough for Roy, who breaks out into a wide smile that has Tim blushing again and muttering things about ridiculously cute freckles.

“Ha, I knew it,” he says, but his grin is just a bit too wide to be taunting, and the way his ears are burning bright red gives him away completely.

-X-

Roy had expected Tim to just…go back to the ocean after that day. Except, well, he didn’t. He explains to Roy how the spell Zatanna (the sorceress) used on him is too complicated and energy draining to be used willy-nilly; if he wants to go on land, he’s stuck on land for a while. He explains how he told her he wouldn’t be coming back to the ocean for at least a year, unless a major emergency happens and he’s needed back at Bruce’s palace.

Tim stays with them for a few nights in the guest room (officially; unofficially, he sneaks in every night to sleep in Roy’s trundle bed and ogle the redhead’s prosthetic arm), but ultimately, three kids are more than enough for Ollie and Dinah to handle, even though one of them should technically be living on his own and another is about to go back to college for her fall semester. Eventually, after Tim explains the situation, Ollie manages to pull a few strings, and sets the teen up to live with Lois Lane. Barbara sets him up with an ID and social security number and all other necessary legal documents, and soon he’s going off to school with Roy in the fall.

It’s not an easy adjustment for Tim. True, he’s very intelligent, but he’s also very new to some concepts (gravity being one, their currency system being another). He learned everything under different names, and integrating all the new knowledge is beyond stressful. It doesn’t help that he’s entirely unprepared for the schooling system above water. Even before his parents had died, he’d always been privately tutored on his own. He didn’t have grades on participation, nor was he routinely tested and quizzed on materials. The tutors always knew when Tim truly understood the material, and moved on to the next unit.

However, once he starts learning the names for things and properly integrating to human life, Tim excels. His grades shoot up, and soon Roy is Skyping him to ask for help on his math homework instead of the other way around.

And, well, it doesn’t really surprise anyone when not even two months later Roy and Tim come out as officially dating. Their relationship isn’t perfect by any means (their mutually low self-esteems do nothing to help), but it’s  _good_ , and good is enough for both of them.

-X-

“So,” Roy says to Tim as he swirls his straw in his drink, watching the couples slow dance on the floor, “Is that gonna be us someday?” He nods at Ron and Jade, the happy newlyweds who are dancing with an infant Lian in a sling between them. It had taken a lot of convincing and threatening from Dinah for them to talk the couple out of eloping to have a Vegas wedding. Looking around, Roy thinks it was worth it.

“Pfft,” Tim snorts, “Us? Kids? I’ve spent enough time with Damian to know that it’s not something I want to be dealing with for a  _long time_ , at the very least.” Roy rolls his eyes.

“You’re dodging the question, guppy,” he says, and Tim frowns at the obnoxious pet name.

“I thought I told you to stop calling me that,” he scowls, but Roy only gives him a look and urges him to answer the question with wide, tempting eyes. “ _Fine_ ,” he sighs. “I guess it could be? I mean,  _statistically_ , there  _is_  a chance that we will stay together long enough to actually get married, but the numbers aren’t that great, and -”

Roy shuts him up with a kiss. “No numbers,” he says when he pulls away. “Numbers and statistics have no room in our relationship, okay? Besides,” he laughs, “We’re one of the first human-merman relationships in  _who knows how long_. There are no statistics on us, guppy, now stop fretting.” Tim tries to protest, but Roy silences him with another kiss.

“You know, that’s not going to work forever,” Tim grumbles, crossing his arms. Roy laughs.

“I know that,” he says, “But I can enjoy it while it lasts. Now,” he says, standing. “May I have this dance?” Tim rolls his eyes, but accepts the proffered hand and draws himself close to the other male.

“You may,” he says. “Just don’t stomp on my feet this time.”

**THE END**

-X-

[7/1/13 8:44:29 PM] Steph HinnRaven: Baby Damian, RoyTim, an AU

[7/1/13 8:44:40 PM] Steph HinnRaven: those are seriously three things I would use to summon her in a ritual


End file.
